Nice work, beeverpeeler. T4E- I see you are still going at it as strong ( ;)) as ever. As usual, beautiful fur. I never did make it over to see you, even though my last 8 years was contracting for Seaplanes! Glad to see your stacking, even with the weak winter. Stay safe, and good fishing.

So is the native market that deep? For a period pleating tails was the norm, at least that was what we were told.
Same with mink. Has this changed for a niche market?,..I dont know ,..it seems we throw a rock in either direction and we need to rethink our put up.

Trapped4ever, I was hoping you would chime in and share a pic of those mouth watering Alaska hogs! For those that don't know, the otters that live in coastal estuaries with rich food like up Alaska way get huge. It probably is genetics at play as well. Goldberg used to have a bin for his Alaska otters and the first time I saw a bunch of fur out 50-60" X 10-12" wide otters from Alaska I about fell over. Thought Goldberg was dealing in sea otters.

I don't know how deep the market is but it has been around for a long time and doesn't seem to have the peaks and valleys like some of the other markets. No matter what market you sell into; wide long tails will not hurt you. Pleated tails on the other hand will kill you for the western otter market.

In my opinion, not pleating tails seems to be the new norm for all otter markets. The native market is not deep enough to absorb all the otter produced in the US. When you are selling pelts to the Chinese market, useable square inches is important. So an unpleated tail on otter gives them more useable inches.

Mink is a different story, wild mink seem to be trending away from pleating. Pleating ranch mink tails is still fairly common. I think one reason is that ranch mink are processed by the 100s (1000s) at commercial operations and they have probably figured out a way to automate the process of pleating the tails (along with other steps being automated). Whereas a trapper puts up mink pelts one at a time.

Thank you both, beaverpeeler and wissmiss. But now I have to ask,..does an unpleated tail dress out larger?

Not sure I understand the question. As a general rule, there is a certain amount of shrinkage in the dressing process. So the entire otter pelt including the unpleated tail will be slightly smaller when dressed. The original size is recovered when the dressed pelt is relaxed and stretched.

I asked Dennis (our main otter buyer) this same question. He says YES. I'm in no position to argue because he's had thousands of otters dressed over the last decade or so.

Thanks BP. I'm still a work in progress, iffn I get another this season I'll definitely rethink my process. Until then, this is how mine usually turn out, the windows are tall, but haven't figured out how to shrink them down...might be my open cut.

Beautiful Work BP

I was talking to Dennis this weekend and he stressed that wide tail stretch and no pleating. I have always done a wide tail stretch, it was how I learned as a kid, but it was nice to have it confirmed. He said that pleating the tail it comes back about half the length from the dressing process. He also stated he liked the feet done the way you do them mud. He said if the feet are balled up and not laid out flat he just takes a pocket knife and whacks them off, but if they are laid open and properly dried he adds 5-15 dollars to the price. Unfortunately he said he didn't need a lot of otters right now and was only bidding on a few good ones at the sale and I don't think otters did as well as they have the last few years. I have not done otters with feet on them, but probably will the next ones I do.

Thanks for the feedback.. hopefully he was interested in mine again. Truth be told, one of mine I did not care for. Leather was different for some reason to me. But I did send 5 with claws on like I do.

I use otter feet in my crafting. It is easy to dry them flat but takes a bit more effort as you need to stretch them as they dry. If you get as much as Carl said added to the price. A few minutes work over a few days makes it worth it.
It may also make a difference in that the buyer that pays more will pay more for your otter rather than buying someone else's.
Otter feet are easy to skin also.
Adding feet and tail to a bag can add $50 to the price.
Another thing to look at when trying to get good money from craft buyers is to cut the ears at the skull. This would go for any skin. A well put up face can add dollars also.

I was so busy this year I didn't hardly get to look at the fur. I bought a fur buyer license this year for the first time, thinking I might buy something for the wife, and didn't even make a bid. The conversation with Dennis took place at about three in the morning. The only time I even seen the grease fur was as it was coming across the table in the check in process. It went much smoother than sales in years past, and all buyers were loaded and out of there long before dark Sunday (last year it was like 11 pm) but the sheer volume of fur was unbelievable and those of us that volunteered to help were too busy to think. Friday I started at 6:30 and never took a break except to pee until almost 9 pm when Rusty's wife came and got me and told me to go eat, that someone would cover for me while I ate.